Tuesday, September 07, 2010

Ahhh, Labor Day Weekend

How was your Labor Day weekend? It is nice to have some time off from work. For some reason that extra day off really helps doesn't it? Any everyone's kiddos should be back to school today here in beautiful Michigan. I only have one kiddo still in school and I am not sure college counts, although, it sure hurts the old pocket book when they register and get books, OUCH!

My weekend fun began while driving home from work with my DD1. I like to look for hawks as I drive along. Now here is a weird fact for you about me, I find that whenever I am worrying or really trying to puzzle something out and I see a hawk it means a solution is near. If I see a crow it will not be a positive end to whatever I am thinking about. Weird but true for me. Do any of you have talisman? Anyway, I digress, so we were driving home and she shouts out hawk and then just stares at me until I finally ask, "What?" To which she replies, "It was a dead hawk on the side of the road". Now I know you are all asking why does this matter? Because I have a history of picking up raptor road kill and taking it to have it preserved. It is illegal to keep even a feather of a protected bird, but the DNR doesn't want them (Told me to throw a Great Horned Owl in the trash, but not to keep it!) I found out that I can donate them to a school though so this is what I do. I don't think it had been dead long either. Of course it was on the highway and I had to go a really long way around to circle back to it but I did and DD1 jumped out and picked it up and put it into a box I was going to use for mailing a package to someone. Once we got it home I put it into a plastic bag and put it into my freezer. Funny story with that too. DH went out to the freezer to get something for dinner and came into the house and asked, "Why is there a dead hawk in our freezer?" Not surprised or upset just wondering, LOL!! He's a keeper!! The hawk will be going to Grand Valley to a professor there that teaches taxidermy at the college but here is what it looked like before we put it into the freezer.Most of the rest of my weekend was uneventful. I did a lot of work around the house, cleaning and laundry etc. I did some reading which took up a lot of my time. then yesterday I decided I needed to do some quilting. Here are the last two Jelly Roll Quilt Along blocks finished.Whew I can cross those off the to do list now. I am waiting for some inner border fabric so I can finish this off.

I started a new "to do" list. It included setting my Sept and Oct goals, so here they are:1-Cut sashing and borders for JRQAL blocks CHECK2-Assemble JRQAL quilt CHECK and give to the quilter CHECK (DONE AND GIFTED)3-Cut sashing and borders for Between Friends quilt and put with the ever growing blocks until I can assemble them (I am using the blocks as leaders and enders and have half of the blocks I need for this top already done!)4-Make the Curious George quilt for Mason CHECK (DONE AND GIFTED)5-Trim all the t-shirts that I have fused for the t-shirt quilt6-Finish mermaid quilt and turn in for auction CHECK7-Take out the Halloween quilt from Ellen and begin it.8-Time permitting make another quilt for MHC with the "man" fabric9-Cut fabric for Hocuspocusville for LTW's dad to trace for me CHECK10-Work on finishing the redwork for Rabbits Prefer Embroidery

Since I will have some time before I get another challenge (if I make it through) I thought I should try to finish some of the other quilts up that are sitting around. I think I should be able to get this all finished, time will tell!

The next thing I did was to work on the mermaid quilt. I got the "waves" done and sewn to the top, put the white on top of that and then made a back. I decided to try to quilt this myself as it is small. I love how it looks all pinned up don't you?Thanks Allie for the basting tutorial, it worked for this one!Then I gave the quilting a try. I don't quilt my own quilts very often but this was small so I went for it. It took me about 3 hours! Now I remember why I hand them off to LTW! Although there is something satisfying about doing your own quilting too. What do you think of her? The quilting is far from perfect but I am happy with it. It just needs the binding which PTM will do for me and I can donate it to the auction. I need to set a minimum bid, what do you think??

I got a back sewn together (from stash) for the manly quilt I made at the Margaret's Hope Chest Quilt weekend. I will be bringing that one to LTW to do though, too big for me! I'm sure this catches you all up with what's new at my house!

That is ONE BIG BIRD - What a neat idea to give it to a school. Don't think I could touch it though. Your jelly-roll blocks look wonderful!

I think you should be able to do everything on your list with ease. Like Darlene [Quilting Daze] you're an underachiever *giggle* Your mermaid is just darling, you did a GREAT job on the quilting and I'm so glad the method worked for you! I would think for the bid a minimum $100 would be fine. The one thing we do as quilters is sell ourselves too short, you put a lot of time into this.

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